Dalhousie Yacht Club

Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Shoreline Landowners and Businesses 2019 High Water Impacts Questionnaire

Were you impacted by high water levels along the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River shoreline in 2019?


Wet conditions throughout the Great Lakes - St. Lawrence River basin in the spring of 2019 resulted in record-high or near record-high water levels in each of the Great Lakes.  These high water level conditions caused tremendous challenges (which are still ongoing in certain areas) for people living and working along the Great Lakes – St. Lawrence River shoreline including direct damages to their homes and valued property.

The IJC’s Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Adaptive Management (GLAM) Committee is working closely with the IJC’s International Lake Ontario – St. Lawrence River Board (ILOSLRB) and the International Lake Superior Board of Control (ILSBC) to reach out to property and business owners who were directly affected by the high water levels in 2019. The committee is hoping you will provide information through this voluntary on-line questionnaire to describe the impacts you have experienced. Your input will be invaluable to the committee in evaluating and improving the scientific and engineering models that have been developed to estimate potential damages under a range of Great Lakes water level conditions. Such evaluation is a critical requirement for the GLAM Committee as it assesses the performance of the regulation plans that are used to manage outflows from Lake Superior and Lake Ontario.  The information will also be made available to the ILOSLRB and the ILSBC to support their ongoing operational activities.  Data provided through the questionnaire will only be reported in a summarized format to ensure the privacy of respondents.    

After some basic location questions, you can choose to:

  • Complete the full questionnaire and upload photos (encouraged)
  • Just upload photos
  • Just complete the questionnaire

If you choose to share any photos, please submit a file size no larger than 8MB in size.

The questionnaire should take about 20 minutes to complete, depending on extent of impacts being reported on. You are encouraged to complete the questionnaire once you know all of your property impacts. Should you wish to update your information at a later date in response to new or changing conditions and impacts, please complete the questionnaire again using the same address you used in the original questionnaire. 

A similar questionnaire was made available on behalf of the GLAM Committee for residents of the Lake Ontario – St. Lawrence River shoreline following high water levels in 2017. Information from that questionnaire was included in the GLAM Report summarizing 2017 conditions. A brief fact sheet on the results of the 2017 online questionnaire is also available.

If you experience technical difficulties while completing the questionnaire, or have questions about the questionnaire, please contact the GLAM Committee at GLAM@ijc.org.

The survey is now closed.

** This questionnaire is a modified version of one previously developed at Cornell University with support from New York Sea Grant that was conducted along the USA Lake Ontario and St. Lawrence River Shoreline in the summer of 2017 and then adapted by the GLAM Committee in the fall 2017 and covered all of Lake Ontario-St. Lawrence River. It has been modified again to allow responses for the entire Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River system.